Constructing a backup routine

I've been over the docs, Bruce's book, and a good part of the web, where
there are plenty documentation on COPY, \copy and pgdump, but I have yet
to make a working backup (and the system goes into production state in 3
weeks..). The problem is, i get my data moved out & in fine, but
sequences are reset? This is, of course, something of a problem, since
it breaks new inserts into unique colums from sequences after a restore.
Also, I've been putting a lot of work into some plpgsql functions, that
I have to load manually - there's only a handful, so it isn't too big a
problem, but all in all, to get a near-workable backup, takes me an hour
or so by hand..

What way do you big folks handle backing up your systems?

regards,
-- 
Johnny Jørgensen <pgsql@halfahead.dk>